Perfect Paige

by Ines Saint

  That afternoon, when Paige got home, she put the page of lyrics in a secret “treasure box” she’d made to hold her kids’ most important keepsakes.

  But this was more than a keepsake. It was a snapshot of a feeling, one she’d hold inside, too, where it was more secure. Where everything was more secure.

  Chapter 14

  That night, she almost stayed inside. Where it was safer. She’d shared enough. And Tyler had told her he’d done really well at football practice because of Alex’s coaching. She had no clue how she felt about that, and for the first time, she wondered why Alex would coach her kids in the first place.

  Too many times lately, she felt like she knew Alex. And yet she didn’t. That thought eventually led her outside, where she knew he’d be waiting. She’d be more guarded. No more hugs that confused.

  “Hey.” The corner of his lip went up.

  She looked away. “Hey.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Tyler said his coach told him he’d make a good quarterback.”

  “Quarterback?” Just one word, and yet his happiness was almost tangible. She nearly rolled her eyes. Football really did bring the man joy. “That’s great! Was he excited?”

  She hesitated. “He was ecstatic . . . but he said it was thanks to you.” She turned to him. “Have you told him you’ll only be coaching him a few more days, tops?”

  Alex studied her a moment. “I thought they both knew I wouldn’t be here for long.” He paused. “Should I talk to him?” he asked, looking clueless, but concerned.

  “No.” Maybe they did know. First thing tomorrow, she’d bring it up. Tyler had been too excited for her to say anything today that could dampen his enthusiasm. “Why are you coaching him, though?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “This whole situation is confusing.”

  “I’m sorry. It just happened,” he said, before wincing, no doubt at his lame excuse.

  She had to smile a little. “Something tells me Hilda and Helga would never have accepted that excuse from you growing up.”

  He shot her an amused glance. “Actually, they use it a lot themselves. They think Americans overexplain themselves.”

  Paige couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  “But my best friend’s dad was another story. He was all for thorough analysis and play-by-play breakdowns of stupid choices.”

  “Let me guess. He was one of your football coaches.”

  “Of course. My first.”

  She bit back another smile. He could be amusing when he wanted to, and she was trying to talk about something serious. But then something he once said came back to her. That teaching a kid to throw a ball was a dad’s job. “It’s good he took you under his wing.”

  He nodded. “He was pretty great.”

  Now she wanted to know more, but she didn’t know how to ask. How had he gotten her to open up last night? It had felt so natural. So right. Like few things ever did. It could be because he was an investigator, and questions came easily to him. So she took a deep breath and did what he’d done. She asked what she wanted to know. “Was it ever hard? To watch your best friend and his dad tossing around a football, I mean?” It was her turn to wince. That had come out awful. She risked a peek at him, but he didn’t seem bothered.

  “Sometimes I’d wonder what it would be like to be tossing around a football with my own dad, but mostly thinking about that hurt, and so I learned not to dwell on the impossible.”

  “It sounds like you were strong, even as a kid.”

  He looked down and shrugged. “Not always. I don’t remember my parents at all, and that would make me sad and angry at times—that I didn’t even have memories. But Grandma Hilda and Aunt Helga were so clear on life not owing anyone anything, and that my only choice was to move on and not get stuck on things I couldn’t change . . . so I learned to look at what I had as opposed to what I didn’t. And I had them, and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles on my dad’s side.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” she asked, because his expression didn’t match his words.

  “I thought it was. But Ruby called me joyless.”

  She stared over at him. “Oh my gosh, she really hurt your feelings with that, didn’t she? I should have a talk with her.”

  He shot her a look. “She didn’t. And no, you shouldn’t. But it made me think. It’s true that life owes you nothing and you shouldn’t get stuck on things you can’t change. But maybe feeling one thing deeply allows you to feel the opposite, too. If I’d wallowed a little in grief, I’d also have felt happiness on top of appreciation. Does that makes sense?”

  She smiled. “It makes perfect sense.”

  He gave her a look, and then something buzzed. She watched as he glanced at his phone, which he’d placed on a small patio table beside him.

  * * *

  Alex stared out into the distance. He’d just been informed that Glenn was there, just up the street.

  Glenn had to have known he was being followed by the time he’d reached Spinning Hills, even though he’d tried getting away from his parents’ house by using a vehicle he thought couldn’t be traced back to him. Glenn had gotten one of his parents’ gardeners to buy a “cold car” from a used car dealer.

  But the town was too quiet and lonely at night for him not to have noticed he was being tailed. And yet he’d stayed. Probably because his not-yet ex-wife and his case agent were standing out in the balcony at midnight, talking. But the fact that he was there, and that he’d taken pains to acquire a cold car, was telling.

  His immunity session was in three days. Everyone was getting nervous, but not everyone was equipped to handle it. Where had Glenn meant to go before he realized he was being tailed? Was it Manor Row? They’d already searched Mad Maddie’s and the judge’s house.

  Maybe Glenn would smarten up and just turn in Dr. Kumar’s journal. But then, Dr. Kumar herself believed Glenn was innocent, and she’d been hosted at the Galloway home only a week before. Gerard Galloway would have an apoplexy if he thought Glenn had sat there, charming Dr. Kumar, knowing he’d been lying to their faces from the start. Having his son tied to the theft of his oldest colleague’s research would be the ultimate humiliation.

  In Glenn’s mind, it was probably a better bet to hope the journal was never found.

  “What brought you out here tonight?” Paige asked.

  He focused his attention back on her, same as he would even if Glenn hadn’t been there. “Same thing as the last two nights. The music.”

  Paige gave him a strange look. “There was no music tonight, that’s why I’m asking.”

  Alex listened. He’d become so absorbed, he hadn’t noticed the music had stopped. It wasn’t a big deal, but it reinforced the fact that he needed fresh eyes on everything. “I heard it just before I came out. They must’ve stopped playing early tonight.”

  “Oh. Wow. I didn’t hear it at all tonight. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought,” she said, before shrugging it off.

  “And I shouldn’t be keeping you up. We both have jobs, but you’ve got kids, too. Of course you’re tired.” He would’ve liked to keep talking, but his mind was on Glenn.

  Alex said good night and went inside, though he had no intention of going to bed. He needed to talk to the agent tailing Glenn to find out when, exactly, Glenn had caught on that he was being followed.

  The answer didn’t bode well for his peace of mind. The agent was sure he’d caught on when he’d turned left on West Main. Which meant he’d already been heading in their direction. There were only a few options for what abandoned house he could’ve been heading to, and Alex had already checked them all. But he was only one agent, working day and night, and fresh eyes and clear minds were needed. Bastard McGee had really tied his hands.

  The next two nights he dreamed of Mad Maddie, jazz, and raids. In his dreams, Maddie was always beautiful, but angry, yelling at agents from the balcony upst
airs, daring them to come closer as she threw anything she could find down at them.

  It wasn’t unusual for him to dream of cases that were taking up most of his time. Agents had been known to solve cases with things that came to them as they drifted off to sleep.

  But this time, his dreams were making things cloudy. There was a feeling that he had either discarded something important, or hadn’t understood the significance of something small.

  All he could do was keep at it.

  Dan, Sam, and Johnny Amador helped all weekend, and Alex was infinitely grateful. He knew they had families and work, and there was nothing in it for them. They tried passing it off as a good opportunity to evaluate houses, but Alex knew they were helping out for Sherry and Paige’s sakes, so their lives could return to normal.

  All three brothers were disciplined, but prone to competing, which made searching efficient, thorough, and more entertaining than it ought to have been. Johnny especially kept up a running commentary on things like the infamous curse gypsies had put on his family, tales of how Ruby’s three husbands really had died, and fun local gossip.

  Alex smiled often and even laughed out loud at times. It helped diffuse the tension that was creeping into his neck and shoulders.

  Spending a good half hour coaching football every afternoon was also doing him a lot of good. A few neighborhood kids and their dads had joined impromptu games at the Tudor, and the tension release helped him carry on working late into the night. It would also be easier on Tyler when he left, since he now had other kids to play with, and other men to keep up the informal coaching.

  * * *

  On Monday, Boyd and Jerome Hess came down to review evidence and search the houses that made the most sense—Mad Maddie’s and the judge’s house—on their own, to see if there was anything Alex and Paige had missed. If they didn’t find anything, they were going to help with the remaining nine houses.

  Alex was pretty good about keeping doubts and negativity at bay. But on Tuesday, frustration was prickling at him. The idea of passing the assignment over to the National Security Agency, where countless analysts would waste time deciding what level priority to assign, and then whether or not to share any information they found, information that would still be relevant to their case . . . it was starting to get to him.

  Paige arrived right after leaving the kids at school. She’d be with him for two hours before she went off to work, and then he’d be on his own. But he knew she couldn’t have gotten much sleep. He’d seen her light on under the door until past 2 a.m.

  It annoyed him that he’d worried, that he’d wanted to knock on the door and tell her she needed her rest. And it irritated the hell out of him that he couldn’t stop thinking about whether she’d ever want to see him again after all this. Of course she wouldn’t. Her kids were her priority, and he was the FBI agent who’d arrested her husband.

  “I’ve got something for you,” she said, smiling as she held something behind her back. His chest ached, and the feeling grated on his nerves.

  “Paige, I don’t have time—”

  She brought out a cupcake. “It’s only a cupcake. I promise it’ll only take a minute for you to finish it off. And it’s gluten-free. For your birthday. It was one week ago today, and Hilda and Helga said it was good luck to celebrate after the fact.”

  A home-baked gluten-free cupcake. For him. Was that what she’d been doing staying up so late last night? Nobody had ever done anything like that for him before. He stared at it. For a moment, it felt as if he’d become disembodied. There was him and Paige, standing there, and all these feelings he didn’t know what to do with. And there was the world around them, with a search, an investigation, and a deadline. He turned away. “I don’t have time for this. You know that. One minute can make or break a case.” He climbed up the ladder, knowing he’d been gruffer than he’d intended.

  She climbed up behind him. “You’re right. How selfish of me to think a one-minute break to snack could reenergize you and do you good.” Her voice was too sweet. Even more so than usual.

  Alex did a quick sweep. The place was chock-full of old furniture and bric-a-brac. He pointed to a corner. “Start over there and work your way to the middle. Check every drawer and shake out anything inside them.” He turned, and a cupcake was smashed onto his mouth. Alex froze. Paige looked livid. Her baby blue eyes had lost their softness and were shooting angry sparks every which way. A large chunk of cupcake fell onto his shirt and another fell onto the old rug below him. His tongue reflexively darted out to catch some. It was yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and it was the best he’d ever had. What a waste. One minute would not have hindered the search. He knew that.

  “There! You can lick it off while you work!” she exclaimed, and tried to stomp off, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. He wanted to try to make her understand everything he was going through. Instead he took some of the cupcake off his face, slathered it onto her mouth, leaned in, and began kissing it off of her. Languid, drawn-out, heat-infusing kisses.

  Paige moaned, loud and deep, as if she’d been fighting off the same frustrations, and she deepened the kisses.

  When he began licking cupcake off the corner of her lip, she leaped up onto him, straddling him, her hands in his hair, her lips on his neck, lips, and ear, and he nearly lost it. He couldn’t breathe or think. All he could do was fuse his mouth to hers, lift her higher, caress her, and groan as passion and desperation mounted.

  “Alex? Sam said you were here! I managed to get keys to the last two houses. You won’t have to climb through a window for those two.” Cassie’s voice called from downstairs. Alex cussed. Paige jumped down faster than she’d climbed up, tripped, and fell onto the floor.

  “I’ll be right down!” he yelled.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll come up!”

  * * *

  Paige’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. But Alex was way ahead of her. He whipped his shirt off, wiped her face free of cupcake, sprinted over to an old mirror, cleaned himself up, wrapped the cupcake in his shirt, and stuffed it under a cushion.

  When Cassie came up, Paige was searching a dresser, and Alex was rifling through a file cabinet. “Oh, Paige is here, too.”

  “Yes. Hi. We’re just so busy.” Paige looked guilty as hell. Alex almost shook his head at her. “And it’s just so hot up here. You know. Late summer heat. An attic.” It was a lame attempt to explain why Alex was shirtless.

  The three of them looked at each other. Cassie looked amused and uncomfortable, all at once. “Yes. And these houses obviously have no air-conditioning. Well, here.” She tossed the keys to Alex. “I’ll leave you two to your search.”

  Alex could swear she was hiding a smile when she turned.

  Paige shot him a side glance. Alex cussed again. “I’m going to have to report this to Boyd.”

  Paige’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re an informant. A source. A witness. I’m legally bound to report it.”

  “This isn’t just about you! Or the case! This is about me, too. Can’t you see how this makes me look? You’re the case agent in a federal investigation into my husband!” She began to pace. “I’ve known you for less than two weeks. What is wrong with me?” She covered her face with her hands.

  In two steps, he was in front of her. “No. Don’t do that. It wasn’t your fault. Okay, Paige? This wasn’t your fault.” He hugged her to him, but still she wouldn’t uncover her face. “You’re right. This is about you, too. I won’t say anything,” he promised. And not because he wanted to protect himself. On the contrary. He was furious with himself and felt he deserved the repercussions. He’d allowed passion to overrule logic. He swallowed hard. Never had he felt so disappointed with himself. “We’ve been spending a lot of time together. We’re under stress. We were releasing it. That’s all it was. And now it’s over and we’re back to normal,” he said, to appease both of them. But she stiffened.

  “I was a stress r
eliever?” She stepped back and stared at him unblinkingly. It was scary. “There wasn’t a stress ball around, so you used me, and now everything is ‘back to normal’?”

  “No.” This was uncharted territory for him. Like the cupcake. “Not normal. Better.”

  She swiveled toward the dresser and continued to search. “I’m so glad I was here to make you feel better, then. That’s what the cupcake was supposed to do, but apparently, what you really needed was a squeeze toy.”

  “You’re not being fair. You kissed me, too.”

  “But I’m not saying I used you to feel better!”

  “That’s not what I’m saying!” He marched off to the other side of the room and continued his own search. He didn’t have time for this. But he couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t let her think he’d been using her.

  He used his training to go over everything that had been said, to figure out where he went wrong, so he could fix it. “All I meant was that you shouldn’t beat yourself up. Things happen when people are under stress. We became each other’s much-needed outlet. It was unintended. I would never use you like that. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  She muttered something he couldn’t catch, and slammed a door shut.

  Alex hadn’t cussed to himself so many times in years. “The actual kiss isn’t what I’m sorry about. I’m sorry the circumstances made it all wrong, and I’m sorry you felt bad about yourself after it. But I didn’t feel sorry because the kiss made me feel bad. It made me feel great. Like scoring a touchdown.”

  “You feel like you scored?”

  “The exhilaration, I mean.” Exhilaration? God, he sounded like a sorry-ass, puppy-eyed teenager. His grandmother and great-aunt were right; Americans did overexplain themselves. “It just happened” was underrated.

  They continued in silence until it was time for Paige to leave. He thanked her for the cupcake, she side-eyed to him to oblivion, and left.